The trailing spouse.

It makes me sound like the toilet paper stuck on M's shoe that he forgot to check for before leaving the bathroom.

http://scientopia.org/blogs/drugmonkey/2010/05/20/spousal-hiring-is-unethical-puhleeze/

There are a lot of spouses of university faculty who work where I work. I'm one of them. And although I have been trying to go from being embarrassed by the fact to acting like it is okay, it is definitely a situation fraught with complexity and needing a lot more active consideration than it gets. So far, most of us are just left to separate (or not) our home and work relationships as we see fit. But the resulting range of spousal situations is extremely diverse, including in the variable of "how well you leave your home life at home."

But there is no way to do this. Not completely. If A is sick, and we can't use the babysitter, one of us will have to stay home. And if both of us has a deadline that day within the same department or unit, one of those deadlines will not get met. But even in day to day interactions - of course I'll be more likely to act towards M in a way that reflects our, um, frankness with each other as husband and wife. Now, sometimes, this means I'm the only one in the workplace who tells M he's wrong about something. And some of the time, I even have a valid point! But other times it means I exert more influence on him than others can, and vice versa.

What I am most confused about in this situation is just what a good balance is. We are married, and we have a certain relationship with each other. While we will not have a marital fight in a university hallway, there are parts of this relationship that it would be impossible to change. Especially in exchange for some sort of perception of a less closely familiar relationship. In the same way that close friends in academia will interact differently, and a very sympathetic advisor-advisee relationship will lead to different behaviors. And for the latter, I don't mean a romantic relationship, I just mean one in which an advisor has a personality match better with some advisees than others.

I'd love to hear some stories from the workplace of better ways of working with spousal colleagues than just pretending it isn't a special situation. Of acknowledging the relationship as something that has an effect, but doing with more subtlety than just requiring one spouse is not responsible for work evaluation of the other spouse (although, in some places, I'm sure that would be a good start).

Buying local

We have the great pleasure of having family visiting this week. It is always nice to bring a little bit of home to Zurich, and even to have the one-on-one time with people that is so hard to get when you do a crazy-fast yearly Christmas visit to the US.

One of the topics that came up at breakfast with my nephew was buying humanely-raised meat. And how much easier that choice is here in Switzerland than in middle America (although it didn't used to be, in the age of the small family farm). This topic easily shifts to the other conscious choices we all make at some point or another, to live a life that is more....something. More humane to animals, or to humans, to not buy "Made in China" or to only buy local. No one can do it all, and we each have the sacrifices we choose to make.

For a while, I tried buying on Etsy, but the communication issues and difficulty (for me) of returning things hasn't solved my buy-small issues. At the other end of the spectrum is buying from Amazon.com. Or Gap.com, or Zappos.com. Earlier this week I read an article that a friend had posted on Facebook about working conditions for low-wage, part-time employees that are hired to fill orders in this free-shipping, get-it-yesterday on-line shopping world. Today I found this article. The conditions were horrible - very short breaks, very fast pace, substantial electrical shocks when filling book orders from poorly grounded shelves (really? How is that ok?), draconian rules about bringing your belongings with you and no place to keep a cell-phone with which to call your kids to check in during your 12 hour shift so you leave it in the break room and hope no one steals is, having to decide between eating and going to the bathroom, getting fired for missing a day of work when "his woman gave birth", etc, etc. People staying in these jobs because there is no other work.

So until I hear about some significant changes over there, I'm off of Amazon.com. I'll continue to download Kindle books, but I'll probably cancel my Prime Membership. And unsubscribe to Gap.com emails. And hopefully have a chance to write, in each case, to the company, why I am leaving. I can do without. I can do with less. I can wait to get it next week.

You do enough, you are enough, you have enough...

I've written these three phrases up on the bedroom wardrobe mirrors. And I get to see them every time I look up from just laying here, or from my laptop. I placed them in that order to match the contents of each space of the wardrobe - on M's side, is the "you do enough", on my side, is the "you have enough", and in the middle, our shared space, "you are enough."

So my side, overflowing in clothes, some of them impulse purchases, overflowing in shoes that don't fit well enough but-hey-they-were-my-size, now has a reminder that "you have enough." That another jacket or jeans, or a new pair of shoes, will not make me a better or different or more interesting person. It will just make me the same person with even more clothes. Which really helps when the Gap/Old Navy/Piperlime emails show up in my email. Because I order stuff from them sometimes, especially for A, and then the e-mails keep coming. And who in this household has time to unsubscribe constantly from e-mail lists? 

But those e-mails get me thinking about what I could buy, and then I look up and I remember that I don't need anything. Even on great sale. I'm enough and I have enough. More than enough. And then I think that, "hey, instead of buying another top, I could bring up the bag of clothing to give away and turn that skirt into a top for summer...."

You do enough. (Don't start another project just because you thought of it).

You have enough. (Yeah, and a new top from an old skirt is still a new top. Leave it in the basement, sister.)

You have e-mail! (Uh-oh).

The online shopping (even if most of it is just window shopping) has calmed down in the face of those scrawled words. But the last e-mail with all the new summer sandals produced a different reaction in me altogether....

When someone says sandals, my feet get all ready for summer comfort. For open toes, bare feet, and rubber soles. What are these objects of torture all over the "HOTTEST summer deals" email? I don't care how "in" espadrilles are, why can't these shoes (that I wouldn't buy anyway, because of course I know I have enough already) come in normal heights? What is the point of shoes like this?

Have you seen women walk in these? I saw one last weekend, and next to her was a guy in Converse sneakers. He was walking and she was....sort of hobbling. Not hobbling, but teetering a bit. That's when I realized the real purpose of these shoes.

To slow or handicap the person wearing them. To make that person a bit weaker. But then it made me smile just a little bit, because the people you need to make weaker with handicapping physical add-ons are those who are actually stronger than you. Things that limit the person's range of motion.

Tight skirts and dresses suddenly make more sense. Women must be really strong if it takes so many different ways to limit their movement.

Lucky

So it turns out that my body react just as strongly to drugs as it does to hormones. Thank god on that first point, because thank no-one on that second point. Honestly, within 2 minutes of getting cortisone injected into my left leg, the pain had gone down by 30%. By the next morning, 70%. I still can't stand or sit for long, but I at least get 5-10 minutes in before needing a break now. Or longer if I can lean on the table. It is magical - thank you, body, for taking to anti-depressants and steroids like you were meant for each other. I am truly grateful.

Because these medications do not work for everyone. Some people get horrible side effects, or no effects, from anti-depressants, and for some people getting a cortisone shot just means being poked with a needle for no benefit. And to be in that pain, hoping for an out, and not get it? That sucks. My Wednesday afternoon, most definitely, did not suck.

And the same thing about me that plagues me - my sensitivity to pain, to hormones, to having my hair brushed the wrong way - also appears to manifest as an ability to suck up all the happy and inflammation-free goodness these drugs have to offer. So that by Thursday morning, I could finally be stopped in my tracks (ok, it was on my way to flop on the bed, but still, I noticed) by the smell of warm wet summer rain outside, coming in through the window. It was a gorgeous smell that I experienced almost like a flavor, or a taste. So rich, so calming.

I couldn't even write a blog post about how I was feeling because the restriction of having to lay for hours on end paralyzed most of my thinking process. Until I was typing away about it all, once I had most of my range of motion back, I hadn't realized how much just being stuck in one place affected the ease of my thought processes. No wonder I was stuck just playing iSlash on my phone for 4 days. That was it, as far as I could do. Since my body couldn't move, it seemed my brain couldn't either.

Turns out, I'm just sensitive. Which is also what probably got me into back trouble in the first place - not wanting to be sensitive and trying to be the tough chick who could pick up her own damn box of books. With her back and not her legs.

Oops.

It seems like it is time to start thinking of myself as sensitive in a good way. My hands can do pretty well around tired, stressed backs and shoulders. I can remember not only spectacular entrees but the quality of the bread at the restaurant and pick out lots of flavors in my food. I'm a on-again, off-again food snob because I notice those things. It is worth me going to a Michelin star restaurant as much as it is not worth ordering me any booze from even the most prestigious wine cellar. My brain picks up on a lot of cues all around me, and while that can be overwhelming sometimes, at others, it means I'm just caught up in the rapture of a field of grass under a blue sky, or the texture of a ball of yarn.

And if I'm that sensitive to emotions and hormones, too, it is the least my body could do to be open to intervention. Thanks, for that, you.

The happy family

Last Saturday, 7pm, I was standing at the exit of a department store telling M that I had to take a cab home. I couldn't stay out with him to take advantage of the babysitter even one more minute because my hips, my tailbone, my thighs, my upper legs were in so much randomly flashing pain.

Tears started to well in my eyes upon giving in to the fact that my back pain was back. My first thought was extreme disappointment that I had spent half of my days the last 2 weeks resting lying down to try to avoid this.

Next thought, more disappointment that I would have to cancel a trip to meet M for his birthday at the end of a business trip this weekend. Complete disappointment. Feeling like I was letting down his birthday.

After that, the thought that I had to go home and lay down as soon as possible because I need to be able to sit on a plane in a few weeks to go on holiday. I just have to. We need to make to that beach, and play in the sand, and sit in the sun, and eat great food and just hang out, because that family is the happy family. The one that lives in Europe and travels. The one that is doing fine. How am I so sure? Well, they're on holiday of course! See them? Yes, the lightly laughing ones with the lovely simple picnic of artisanal foods from the local market. How will they ever decide which sea shells to bring home and which to leave?

Sure there was a miscarriage this year, but maybe they'll try again. That second child, an even bigger indicator that they are all alright, because if you're not alright, you can't go and have yourself another kid. That would be crazy. And irresponsible. Responsible people, who are not just asking for trouble from fate, take into account their limitations when they make decisions.

Irresponsible people end up on Judge Judy, Nanny 911, and pretty much any reality show out there. 

But my back had different ideas about this all. The herniated disc I was so sure I'd successfully nursed back to health over the last year, was back. And for days now I haven't been able to even pick up the child I have. Or get her meals. I can just about get her diaper changed and her dressed for school in the morning. If it is a poopy diaper, yeah, sorry, I'm out. I can't support my upper torso with my back yet, so I need to use one of my arms to lean on. And if you have ever changed a mushy poopy diaper, try imagining that fiasco.

I could seriously restrict the fiber in this child's diet, and gain back another competency. Harder poops detach themselves from a baby butt without much wiping. As for the little, round, diaper escape artists, as long as they stay intact, we're fine. You can catch them after the butt is safely re-diapered. Houston, we have no problem.

But as I spend more hours laying down - around 70 now - I'm starting to realize I may need to redefine what I can do again. Like I had to do with depression. So far these are but tiny, fleeting thoughts pushing their way into my brain while I try to distract myself with bad movies, worse TV and pointless websites. Oh, and an endless game on my iPhone.

What if I now have to become the woman with depression and back problems, who decided not to have another child because our family just couldn't handle it? What will that say about me, about our family? Why do I care? How do I take the desire to have had a second, look-how-normal-and-great-we-are child out of my picture of the happy family? Or my having a job right now? Or a number of other things that I think I want, but am not always sure why?

I can spend inordinate amounts of energy trying to craft the perfect-looking, certifies-me-as-happy life, without sitting down and looking at where true happiness will come from. I finally laminated a Richard Scary getting-dressed-in-the-morning checklist for A today. And luckily, I remembered to turn off the laminator. That is going to have to do it for the happy checkbox.

Well this post represents some 30 minutes gone, that I probably should have filled watching another Portlandia episode.

That one corner of the bedroom

The one near the door, near the ceiling. I've been spending a lot of time looking at it. There is a hint of doorway over there, the top, of course, an iron and some half-Muppets on the bookshelf. There are the tickets to the dance performance we opted out of, tacked to the wall above the desktop. The desktop computer itself. The postcard from the Kunsthaus exhibit on Mexican art that I can finally take down because we finally went to see it on Saturday.

The corner. My WhatNots are soundlessly serenading me. Or just re-enacting the faces they see me making as I try to stand up these days.

Ah, Saturday. It started well enough, and ended with me grunting in pain on a taxi ride home from the train station, when I couldn't take the leg and hip and thigh cramping anymore. Let's just say my back is back. With a vengence. At least the herniated disc is.

So I am back in bed for about 48 hours now, feeling every bit as useless as I did last time this year and slightly more pissed off since all that pilates-at-home was supposed to buy me out of ever feeling this way again. I can't even say what did it this time. The rocking A in my lap before her nap? Sleeping with her on the memory foam bed in her room? I just know that about 2 hours after waking up from feeling mostly okay and thinking my slight back irritation was finally clearing up, I was laying down in the entrance to a menswear dressing room in downtown Zurich, wincing and swearing under my breath while trying to assure the saleswomen that I wasn't about to... I don't know what they were most worried might happen. Throw up? Yeah, that would be what I'd be worried about if I was working there. Or someone just up and dying in the dressing room.

"No, no, I'm fine (not going to hurl on anything here). Its just my back." Granted, anyone who has has disc injuries before knows that this is a ridiculous statement - the use of the word "just." It is excruciating. It ranks right up there with giving birth pain. It is paralyzing.

So, I'm back to spending my time observing a lot. Which has been interesting this time around, because I've observed (heard) M being a spectacular father. In a way I didn't know he could be. He's been funny, and warm and really rolled with the punches with A. With grace. With a grace that I have yet to find, and in this it has been really good that I am not in the picture and keeping my mouth shut as much as possible. It is hard not to be a back-seat parent, but the rewards of letting them have their own relationship has been magical. And I'm learning some things I would never hard learned otherwise. M is much more relaxed about A not following orders right away. And it doesn't mean all her discipline falls by the wayside. This is a really big lesson for me - to see the results of M's approach. And to learn from it.

I'm feeling better finally, but right now, as M and A are making dinner in the kitchen, I'm laying back again. I'm trying to remember just to observe, to absorb, to let them be and to learn.

My bed, my foot, my new inspirational-stop-worrying-about-doing-more-than-being mirror art. Kids' wax window crayons are surprisingly multi-purposeful.